GrowthSpur will provide training, tools, services and networks that will allow local sites to grow and become successful businesses. More than 2,000 local sites and blogs have been started over the past few years, mostly as labors of love, and there are many more to come as newspapers founder and journalists and community leaders look to new ways to provide news, information and forums to their neighbors.

At the New Business Models for News Project at CUNY, we’re seeing that hyperlocal blogs can already be good businesses and through the efforts of enterprises like GrowthSpur, we think they can be even better, which we believe will encourage more of them to start (more on that soon). At the Project, we’ve worked with Potts et al; they’ve helped us with thinking through models and we’ve helped them – and other enterprises – with research and analysis, all of which we’ll be sharing on the project’s site.

One of the reasons I have gotten involved with GrowthSpur is I see such a strong need. There are over 2000 new local sites that have cropped up recently. While many of them have proven they can create quality content and build a meaningful audience, relatively few have built a sustainable business. Thanks the aforementioned New Business Models for News Project, they have compiled the economics from scores of sites. What is particularly striking is that there are many small sites with staffs of 2-3 people bringing in $100-200k/year while there are many more that at sub $10k which means it won’t be sustainable beyond a hobby. Having personal experience with having built a sustainable local site that has made a meaningful dent in its community, I’m optimistic that we can see many, many more have success. GrowthSpur hopes to accelerate that movement.